Forest Hills hacker gets 25 months for breaching law enforcement portal and extorting victims: Feds

A Queens cyber criminal and his co-defendant from Rhode Island were each sentenced to more than two years in federal prison for aggravated identity theft and computer hacking crimes.

Nicholas Ceraolo, 27, of Forest Hills, and Sagar Steven Singh, 21, of Pawtucket, pleaded guilty in Brooklyn federal court last June to hacking a law enforcement database and posing as police officers to defraud social media companies.

Ceraolo, who is also known as “Convict,” “Anon,” and “Ominous,” was sentenced on May 30 to 25 months imprisonment for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion and aggravated identity theft. Singh, who is known as “Weep,” was sentenced to 27 months in prison for the same offenses in Brooklyn federal court on June 4.

“The defendants breached a federal law enforcement database using multiple means to steal sensitive personal information, and exploited that data to extort and threaten innocent people and their families,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said. “This sentence sends a clear message that my office is committed to protecting victims from digital predators and that those who exploit vulnerabilities in government systems will face jail time.”

Ceraolo and Singh belonged to a hacking group called “ViLE,” whose logo is the body of a hanging girl over the online monikers for the members of the hacking crew who sought to collect victims’ personal information, such as names, physical addresses, telephone numbers, social security numbers, and email addresses. ViLE then threatened to “dox” victims by posting that information on a public website administered by a ViLE member. Victims could pay to have their information removed from or kept off the website.

Ceraolo and Singh confessed they unlawfully used a law enforcement officer’s stolen password to access a nonpublic, password-protected web portal maintained by a U.S. federal law enforcement agency for the purpose of sharing intelligence with state and local law enforcement. The database detailed nonpublic records of narcotics and currency seizures, as well as law enforcement intelligence reports. Ceraolo also accessed without authorization the email accounts of a foreign law enforcement officer and used them to defraud social media companies by making purported emergency requests for information about the company’s users.

Between February 2022 and May 2022, Ceraolo accessed an official email account belonging to a Bangladeshi police official and then used the account to pose as a Bangladeshi police officer in communication with U.S.-based social media platforms.

In one instance, Ceraolo induced a social media platform to provide information on one of its subscribers, including the subscriber’s address, email address, and telephone number, by asserting that the subscriber had participated in “child extortion” and blackmail and had threatened officials of the Bangladeshi government. Ceraolo shared the information with another ViLE member, who sent the information to Singh. Ceraolo also used the Bangladeshi police account to attempt to purchase a license from a facial recognition company whose services are not available to the general public.

“These defendants impersonated law enforcement, illegally accessed government databases, and even faked life-threatening situations to bypass criminal procedures through which they could obtain sensitive personal information,” Homeland Security Investigations Acting Special Agent in Charge Michael Alfonso said. “They threatened innocent victims’ livelihoods and were found to have joked about their deceptive, exploitative, and calculated scheme in messages with each other.”

In one online communication between the two hackers, Ceraolo wrote to Singh: ‘were all gonna get raided one of these days i swear.” After Singh’s sentencing, Alfonso added that “As a result of the HSI New York El Dorado Task Force’s commitment to justice in this case, both men will now have many months in federal prison to consider the seriousness of these crimes.”